Litigation Funding

The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services is conducting an inquiry into class action s and litigation funding.

Its Terms of Reference are:

 Whether the present level of regulation applying to Australia’s growing class action industry is impacting fair and equitable outcomes for plaintiffs, with particular reference to the following:

• what evidence is available regarding the quantum of fees, costs and commissions earned by litigation funders and the treatment of that income; 

• the impact of litigation funding on the damages and other compensation received by class members in class actions funded by litigation funders; 

• the potential impact of proposals to allow contingency fees and whether this could lead to less financially viable outcomes for plaintiffs; 

• the financial and organisational relationship between litigation funders and lawyers acting for plaintiffs in funded litigation and whether these relationships have the capacity to impact on plaintiff lawyers’ duties to their clients; 

• the Australian financial services regulatory regime and its application to litigation funding; 

• the regulation and oversight of the litigation funding industry and litigation funding agreements; 

• the application of common fund orders and similar arrangements in class actions; 

• factors driving the increasing prevalence of class action proceedings in Australia; 

• what evidence is becoming available with respect to the present and potential future impact of class actions on the Australian economy; 

• the effect of unilateral legislative and regulatory changes to class action procedure and litigation funding; 

• the consequences of allowing Australian lawyers to enter into contingency fee agreements or a court to make a costs order based on the percentage of any judgment or settlement; 

• the potential impact of Australia’s current class action industry on vulnerable Australian business already suffering the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic; 

• evidence of any other developments in Australia’s rapidly evolving class action industry since the Australian Law Reform Commission’s inquiry into class action proceedings and third-party litigation funders; and any matters related to these terms of reference.

Money Laundering

'A world fit for money laundering: the Atlantic alliance’s undermining of organized crime control' by Mary Alice Young and Michael Woodiwiss in (2020) Trends in Organized Crime comments

This is the untold history of how prominent civil servants in the UK tailored US-devised anti-money laundering (AML) policies in ways that suited the needs of Britain’s financial services industry. In the aftermath of these initial compromises in 1987, criminal money managers in both the US and the UK were able to continue to operate in an environment that easily allowed them to hide and use dirty money. The researchers analysed six months of previously unseen personal correspondence and documents exchanged between various actors in the UK Government during 1987. From this they conclude that the core of the current, global AML regime, was not the destruction of drug money laundering and banking secrecy, nor the ending of criminal financial enablers and with it hot money; rather it was the protection and leverage of national trading interests on both sides of the Atlantic. And the drive to protect these interests would see crime control laws made, amended and changed to cater for the interests of the US and UK banking and finance industries. The file had been classified as secret and held by the UK Treasury until it was released to the public in 2017 as an archive document transferred to The National Archives in accordance with The Public Records Act and the Freedom of Information Act. 

 The authors argue

 In the post 9/11 era, there has been a systematic and regular production of anti-money laundering (AML) guidance documents and the creation of various AML programmes from international bodies including the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (see for example Schott’s Reference Guide to Anti-Money Laundering and Combating the Financing of Terrorism, Schott 2006); the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) (for example, Guidance on Criminalising Terrorist Financing, 2016 and Best Practices on Confiscation (Recommendations 4 and 38) and a Framework for Ongoing Work on Asset Recovery 2012); and the United Nations (UN) (Global Programme against Money Laundering, Proceeds of Crime, and the Financing of Terrorism (GPML) 2007). These ‘best practice’ initiatives centre on the notion that it is a priority for all countries to establish their own national frameworks to combat the phenomenon of money laundering and the wider concept of financial crime. Countries’ own frameworks are constructed in line with international AML standards and benchmarks initially created by the US as part of wider foreign and public policy initiatives to control organized crime. 

Assumptions that the US is successful in its efforts to extend and apply the requirements of domestic crime control policies to foreign branches of domestic financial institutions located abroad, tend to be embraced by those who write non-critically about the “international fight against money laundering” and its threat to society, and who believe that the implementation of AML policies offers solutions to a myriad of organized crime problems (see generally, Robinson 1995; Stessens 2000; Fisher 2002; Leong 2007; Souster 2013; Cox 2014). Therefore, the wider literature base remains largely complaisant towards the international AML system and its hoard of “strong tools” such as international cooperation and the exchange of information, thought to be successful in the fight against crime, including corruption (Sharman and Chaikin 2009; Ferwerda, 2009). Sympathetic publications reinforce the misleading narrative of policy makers that organised and financial crime, including money laundering was largely driven by ‘traditional’ criminal organisations and remains a major threat to the democracy of all nations. As the authors will demonstrate, however, the current international AML framework arose out of expedient compromises that would favour the financial communities of the US and the UK at the expense of genuinely effective organized crime control.

As will be shown in this paper, the “claim makers” (specifically, US and UK policy makers during the administrations of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher) were successful in creating an internationally palatable AML template, by framing the threat mantra of money laundering, in such a way that it has been adopted by sympathetic, mainstream academics who are then able to bring definitions and concepts “to the public realm” (Ceresola 2019:51). It should be acknowledged that there are notable exceptions to the aforementioned mainstream narratives of the AML system, including critical scholars such as Levi and Reuter (2006), and Van Duyne (2008) who acknowledge that the international AML framework has not had the desired effect of suppressing criminal activities and thwarting organized crime groups. The origins of the AML machine, however, have not yet been examined in depth and the authors of this paper address this gap in the literature. Using primary correspondence data in the form of previously unseen letters between UK bankers and civil servants written during 1987, we seek to illuminate the compromises made as the global AML framework was taking shape. These compromises would come to render the framework as flawed.

Adopting the language of Ceresola (2019), the US has historically been the primary framer and claims-maker, in terms of defining money laundering, deciding the scale of the threat of money laundering, and subsequently, determining that coalitions between banking communities and governments were the best ways – indeed the only ways – to solve the problem of dirty money. Through the analysis of a mix of political and financial sector narratives presented in the form of correspondence data (typed letters), and official reports – some of which will be explored in this paper – it will be shown, that those responsible for the creation of the global AML regime have established money laundering as a continuing threat to society; one which is inextricably linked to the illegal drug trade. Having presented this ‘threat’ to a global audience, policy makers have been able to justify the creation of flawed policies in response to public anxieties which largely evolve from the media’s distorted presentation of organized crime (Greer 2013). As the research for this paper will reveal, the public presentation of the conceptualisation of the threat of money laundering and its control has grown, initially, from deals and compromises between US and UK policy makers. These compromises, shaped and moulded a global AML regime tailored to fit the US’ and UK’s own banking and finance trading priorities, using the war on drugs and thus organized crime, as a handy smokescreen. The US government was then largely responsible for setting the organized crime control agendas of national governments and international organisations, notably the UN, the FATF, the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS), and international law enforcement agencies such as Interpol. 

Within the policy making process, the framing of “public goods and public evils has ramifications for laws, legislation, and funding that affects individuals on the ground” (Ceresola 2019:52). This is the first known paper, using primary source correspondence data, to detail the reasons why US devised policies concerning money laundering controls in the 1970s and 1980s, were not initially acceptable to the UK and how compromises between both countries were engineered to deliver a palatable AML system, still in use today and protecting the richest countries. In the course of researching for this paper, the authors have uncovered that the framing of money laundering by the US in the 1970s and 1980s had numerous ramifications, including adopting the war on drugs as a political veil to justify targeting foreign tax havens as conduits of organized crime and money laundering. This tactic was also favoured by the UK which wanted to retain its wealthy tax haven territories with their secrecy laws, but also wished to be seen to be doing something about the war on drugs. Ultimately, the handy shield of the international war on drugs and dirty money, led to the creation of AML-focused bodies that rarely challenged the interests of those nations who were complicit in the establishment and maintenance of secrecy havens, and in so doing, elevated the role of bankers to criminal law policy makers while minimising the role of international law enforcement bodies such as Interpol. As will be shown, the ramifications discussed below, are relevant today because in the context of organized crime control at the wider level, the UK and US are still operating with the same assumptions and policies in the twenty-first Century.

In formulating a global AML template during the 1980s, the US’s public and foreign policy interests concerning the fight against drug money laundering acted as useful and morally righteous fronts for the real, self-serving interests of the US, which included boosting the wealth of national banking corporations and the government, and halting capital outflows from the US to foreign tax havens as citizens sought to maximise personal wealth by circumventing domestic tax laws. In seeking to recoup tax revenues, the US would be required to take action against the tax and secrecy havens hosting foreign branches of domestic financial institutions; institutions used by Americans and located in British overseas territories such as the Cayman Islands, Bermuda and the Turks and Caicos Islands. In response to threats of extra territorial jurisdiction, and in a bid to retain its dominance as a global financial services provider – not to mention the offshore wealth residing in its overseas jurisdictions - the UK was able to accommodate US proposals when compromises were made between both countries, which saw policies amended to present less of a threat to the financial services industries and economies of both countries.

This is the untold and previously secret history of how civil servants in the UK tailored US-devised AML policies to suit the needs of Britain’s financial services industry. Further, in the aftermath of 1987, criminal money managers in both the US and the UK continue to operate in an environment that easily allows them to hide and use dirty money.

Fakes

As a scholar of identity crime - at times the most entertaining part of my doctoral dissertation - I've written about people who have egregiously embellished their CVs and had those fabrications accepted by peers or institutional watchdogs.

Some of the reveals' have been mordant, with one publication debunking the Mittyesque CV of IT leader Jeff Papows (who seems to have flourished nonetheless) with the statement

So he's not an orphan, his parents are alive and well. He wasn't a Marine Corps captain, he was a lieutenant. He didn't save a buddy by throwing a live grenade out of a trench. He didn't burst an eardrum when ejecting from a Phantom F4, which didn't crash, not killing his co-pilot. He's not a tae kwon do black belt, and he doesn't have a PhD from Pepperdine University.

The Guardian today notes an expose regarding French author and serial killer expert Stéphane Bourgoin, "widely viewed as a leading expert on murderers". Bourgoin's books about serial killers have reportedly sold millions of copies, a figure that perhaps something more telling about our taste for the contemporary gothic than it does for the depth of his analysis.

Other sources indicate Bourgoin was a lecturer at France's National Training Center for Judicial Police at the school of the French National Gendarmerie for around 10 years and at the National School of Magistrates in 2015 and 2018.

Bourgoin claimed to have interviewed more than 70 serial killers and to have trained at the FBI’s base in Quantico. He also claimed that his wife was murdered in 1976 by a man who confessed to a dozen murders on arrest two years later. Oops, no.

Bourgoin has now admitted to the French media that the wife never existed, that he never trained with the FBI, never interviewed Charles Manson, met far fewer killers than he has previously claimed, never worked as a professional footballer, and completely invented one serial killer. He's accused of plagiarising at least one book.

Presumably we will now get a best-selling autobiography and documentary.

Bourgoin reportedly attributes the fakery to having always felt he was not really loved.

Early last year the New Yorker reported thriller writer Dan Mallory (aka A.J. Finn) claimed in his application to Oxford’s New College that his mother died of cancer and that his brother had died in his care.  his mother and brother died. Both are apparently alive and well. Mallory claimed that he had surgery for a brain tumour, missed work for supposed high-risk surgery. Apparently no tumour, no surgery. He reportedly impersonated his brother, sending email to colleagues updating them on Dan’s “surgeries” and “recovery”. Subsequently he told an acquaintance that his brother had committed suicide. 

Why stop there? Mallory reportedly  He claimed to have written a doctoral dissertation on Patricia Highsmith while at Oxford and signed email as  'Dr. Daniel Mallory'. He was hired by a UK publisher after having claimed to have worked as an editor at US publisher Ballantine and modestly claimed to have been awarded doctorates from both Oxford and American University. Not so: an incomplete Masters and no PhDs.

Filters

'Facebook Filters, Fundamental Rights, and the CJEU’s Glawischnig-Piesczek Ruling' by Daphne Keller in (2020) GRUR International comments

The Court of Justice of the European Union’s (CJEU) 2019 ruling in Glawischnig-Piesczek v Facebook Ireland  addresses courts’ powers to issue injunctions requiring internet hosting platforms to proactively monitor content posted by their users. It answers important questions about limitations on such injunctions under the eCommerce Directive (Directive 2000/31/EC). But, as this Opinion explains, it leaves some much thornier questions unresolved. 

Glawischnig-Piesczek holds that courts may, consistent with Art. 15 of the eCommerce Directive, require platforms to monitor for and remove specific content. Monitoring orders may not, however, require platforms to carry out an ‘independent assessment’ of the content. The ruling does not closely examine what kinds of injunctions or filtering technologies are permissible, nor does it explore fundamental rights considerations when courts are asked to order platforms to monitor their users. This Opinion lays out the case’s technological, legal, and policy backdrop, and identifies important questions it leaves open for Member State courts. In particular, the Opinion suggests that Glawischnig-Piesczek’s limitation on ‘independent assessment’ will make it difficult for courts to devise injunctions that simultaneously follow the CJEU’s guidance under the eCommerce Directive and meet the requirements of fundamental rights. It lists key fundamental rights considerations for future cases involving potential monitoring injunctions, including procedural considerations in cases affecting the rights of absent third parties.

Patents

'Myths of the Medical Methods Exclusion: Medicine and Patents in Nineteenth Century Britain' by Catherine Kelly and Robert Burrell in (2018) 38(4) Legal Studies 607-626 comments

This paper explores the interaction of British medical practitioners with the nascent intellectual property system in the nineteenth century. It challenges the generally accepted view that throughout the nineteenth century there was a settled or professionally agreed hostility to patenting. It demonstrates that medical practitioners made more substantial use of the patent system and related forms of protection than has previously been recognised. Nevertheless, the rate of patenting remained lower than in other fields of technical endeavour, but this can largely be explained by the public nature of medical practice during this period. This paper therefore seeks to retell the history of the exclusion of medical methods from patent protection, an exclusion whose history has produced a substantial body of scholarship. However, its aims go beyond this in that it also seeks to illuminate how medical practitioners engaged with the broader political and policy landscape in order to secure financial remuneration for their inventions. Through an exploration of how prominent doctors interacted with Parliament around claims for a financial reward, it demonstrates that doctors sought to use reputational advantage to leverage financial success and the important role that Parliament could play in that process.

Authentication and Integrity Checking

'The Intrinsic Value of Valuable Paper: On the Infrastructural Work of Authentication Devices' by Aleksandra Kaminska in (2020) Theory, Culture and Society comments

Authentication devices transform cheap paper into legitimate documents. They are the sensory, informational, and computational features that make up valuable papers like banknotes and passports, and they provide the confidence required in moments of exchange and passage. These devices – which include techniques like watermarks and specialized threads, proprietary substrates and inks, or RFID chips – are the product of security printing, an industry that continuously reinvents the possibilities of paper. Importantly, these components protect paper things from counterfeiting, allowing it to function as an original and authentic copy and to do the logistical work of connecting quotidian materials to global networks. The value of valuable papers is therefore not purely extrinsic, socially or discursively established, but is also performed through its intrinsic material qualities. These are the authentication devices that are read, assessed, and trusted as paper things are circulated, and they are what securely connects paper to infrastructures of mobility.

As I tweeted earlier this month, ProctorU, the controversial and widely used online proctoring service (aka integrity platform), has released a Student Bill of Rights.

It is up there with a local retailer's assertion (which I used in a seminar last year) that we all have a 'right to be beautiful' ... sounds good but somewhat unenforceable.

The Bill is presumably a response to growing criticism by university students in several jurisdictions regarding the invasiveness of ProctorU, Proctorio and other invigilation services. The platforms are not new … they have for example been in use outside universities for at least ten years regarding certification of financial advisors and that there is convergence between psychometric testing services and exam invigilation services.

In a forthcoming book chapter on learning analytics I'm drawing on the substantial scholarly literature about such services. They have gained increasing attraction in the mainstream media, particularly as institutions have rushed to embrace online invigilation of exams as part of the COVID-19 transition to online-only teaching. An item in the Washinton Post for example comments 

At the start of a ProctorU test, students are told to show the proctor their student ID cards, their rooms and the tops of their desks to prove they don't have any cheating material at hand. During the test, the proctor listens through the student's microphone to ensure he or she does not ask for help from someone out of view.

 

The proctor gains access to the test-takers' computer screens and receives alerts if they do something unacceptable, like copying and pasting text or opening a new browser tab. A video system analyzes the students' eyes: If they look off-screen for four straight seconds more than two times in a single minute, the motion will be flagged as a suspect event - a hint that they could be referencing notes posted off-screen.

 

To ensure the right student is taking the exam, the software uses facial-recognition software to match them to the image on their ID. Random scans are performed throughout the exam to prevent another test-taker from jumping in.

 

The company also verifies identities with a typing test: A student may be asked to type 140 words at the beginning of the semester, then again just before testing to verify the speed and rhythms of the student's keystrokes. Any discrepancies can be flagged for closer inspection.

 

A human proctor watches every second of an exam, though the student cannot see the proctor's face. In previous versions of the software, the student could see the person watching them, but "the creepiness factor always sort of came up," McFarland said. If a proctor suspects cheating, they alert a more aggressive specialist, or an "interventionist," who can demand that students aim their webcam at a suspicious area or face academic penalty.

 

Proctors typically work out of one of 11 centers across Alabama, California, India, Jamaica, Panama and the Philippines. But with many of those offices closed, the company said, it is opening backup centers in Canada, hiring more than 100 new workers and instructing many proctors to work from home.

Managers in the centres appear to have a disquieting ethic, with the Post reporting

When University of Florida sophomore Cheyenne Keating felt a rush of nausea a few weeks ago during her at-home statistics exam, she looked into her webcam and asked the stranger on the other side: Is it okay to throw up at my desk? He said yes. So halfway through the two-hour test, during which her every movement was scrutinized for cheating and no bathroom breaks were permitted, she vomited into a wicker basket, dabbed the mess with a blanket and got right back to work. The stranger saw everything. When the test was finished, he said she was free to log off. Only then could she clean herself up.

The article states

 

ProctorU, which oversaw 2 million tests last year from more than 750,000 students, has compiled years of data on students' 15 "behavioral cheating types," McFarland said. Students' tests are live-streamed and recorded for later review: The worst offenders, McFarland said, have had their videos edited together into what he called a cheating "Hall of Fame."

 

ProctorU's competitors offer similar anti-cheating surveillance with different strategies. Honorlock, a Florida-based company that CEO Michael Hemlepp said has seen "a massive spike in inquiries," uses software that looks for "attempted dishonesty" and then sends in a human proctor for further review.

 

Proctorio goes further, using a completely software-driven approach. After students consent to letting Proctorio monitor their webcams, microphones, desktops or "any other means necessary to uphold integrity," the system tracks their speech and eye movements, how long they took to complete the test and how many times they clicked the mouse. It then gives professors an automated report ranking test-takers by "suspicion level" and the number of testing "abnormalities." Students deemed untrustworthy by the computer are color-coded in red and given an icon of two shadowy figures, reminiscent of the "Spy vs. Spy" cartoon of Mad magazine fame.

 

Chris Dayley, the director of academic testing services at Utah State University, which uses Proctorio, described the software with a laugh as "sort of like spyware that we just legitimize." And though many students despise the feeling of being watched, Olsen, the company's chief executive, said the discomfort is worth it if it helps protect the tests. "We're the police," he said.

Civil liberties group Public Citizen notes the egregious litigiousness of ProctorU, which appears to have attempted to silence academic criticism in the US by threatening litigation over a range of its critics supposed harms, including copyright, defamation and trade mark infringement. Not, in my opinion, the service provider that you want to partner with. 

As for the Bill of Rights? Privity means it's in essence an expression of puffery ... pretty words that are unenforceable under contract law by Australian students. 

The various services are a data breach waiting to happen.

NSW Strip Search Procedure

My 'Castles and casualties: recent case law about procedure, trespass and the private sphere' in (2019) 16(3/4) Privacy Law Bulletin 71 last year considered recent trespass and privacy controversies, including Attalla v New South Wales [2018] NSWDC 190; BC201840353. In Attalla the NSW District Court awarded the plaintiff $112,387 for an unjustified and incorrectly conducted strip search alongside unlawful detention. The Law Enforcement (Powers and Responsibilities) Act 2002 (NSW) specifically referred to regard for privacy in the conduct of searches.

In this blog I have subsequently highlighted other incidents (eg here), asking whether training and supervision in the NSW Police is adequate. The NSW Law Enforcement Conduct Commission (LECC) last week released its independent report on the LECC investigation regarding the incident.

The report problematically redacts a copy of the judgment by referring to 'SAN' rather than Attalla and pseudonymises the names of NSW Police personnel who were identified in the District Court judgment. The LECC appears unhappy about the Police responsiveness to its investigation.

Its report states

Shortly prior to the trial in the civil proceedings, the State of NSW conceded that the strip search was unlawful. In the course of the trial, the State also conceded that the continued detention of SAN1C, after he was subjected to a search by Officer SAN4 was unlawful. However, these concessions do not obviate the need for the Commission to consider whether the police committed any serious misconduct in connection with these events. 

As has already been noted, Officer SAN4 conducted a strip search of SAN1C at the police station. This involved requiring SAN1C to squat and move his testicles. Certainly, SAN1C had not consented to the requirement but had complied because it was clear that the officer was asserting legal control. Since, however, this procedure was conventional and Officer SAN4 understood that he was acting within his powers the Commission does not consider that, in taking these actions, he had committed any serious misconduct. 

A more fundamental objection to the legality of strip searching SANIC is that Officer SAN4 had no proper basis for conducting the search. There was no matter that could have given rise to a reasonable suspicion that the search was necessary. Officer SAN1 had conveyed only that she believed he "might have had something" but not the basis for that belief and it is clear that Officer SAN4 had no independent suspicion, let alone one based on reasonable grounds, that a strip search was necessary. He acted at the direction of Officer SAN1 and also, it seems likely, in accordance with the general rule at the time applying in the Kings Cross Police Station that persons brought into custody were to be strip searched. In light of that rule the Commission is not minded to make a finding of misconduct against Officer SAN4, although his conduct of the strip search at Officer SANTs direction was not, as he should have known, authorised by his LEPRA powers. 

Although Officer SAN1 had not herself conducted the search, it is clear that it was conducted at her direction. There was no legal basis for the direction. Considering the circumstances as a whole, the only reasonable explanation was that it was instituted to humiliate SANIC for his non­ compliance with her earlier unreasonable directions and Officer SANTs indifference to the legal limits on police powers, of which she was only vaguely aware. This conduct was a serious breach of her duty. 

The Commission was originally concerned that the litigation was not conducted in accordance with the model litigant policy (see Annexure). The Commission is satisfied that there is no basis on which to find that the NSWPF, did not act in accordance with that policy. 

As noted, an investigation of the complaint was declined by Officer SAN7 as he relied upon s 132(g) of the Police Act 1990, concluding that the issues had been canvassed during the civil proceedings. As he acknowledged, in hindsight, that decision was not appropriate (see par. 4.76). It is now accepted by the NSWPF that the mere fact of civil proceedings cannot be a ground, unless the circumstances are exceptional, for declining to investigate misconduct information. It is obvious that, whilst civil proceedings might resolve issues between the State of NSW and a plaintiff who has sued because of unlawful police conduct, it will do nothing about the officers' responsibility for that conduct and the duty of the Commissioner to deal with it. This is even more so when it is appreciated that by far the majority of such litigation is settled before judgment. At every point, the NSWPF failed to appropriately respond to the SAN1C decision. Officer SAN7 agreed that the SAN1C decision should have been brought to the attention of the subject police officers and discussed with them as they were otherwise none the wiser as to their conduct. The Commission is satisfied that the NSWPF has since taken measures to educate and train their officers as to their powers by way of regular email updates, stickers and on-line training. In addition, training involving practical case scenarios has been implemented. The Commission has recently addressed this issue in its report to Parliament: "Review of the NSWPF Standard Operating Procedures for Strip searches in Custody, January 2020" which was made public on 13February 2020. The Commission is satisfied that the NSWPF is presently taking measures to address the Commission's concerns about its training and education of officers in this regard.

The report notes

The judgment of the Court raised the following issues:

(i) A person, going about his daily business, was unlawfully arrested and subjected to the degrading ordeal of being strip-searched, during which he was asked to lift his genitals and to squat and cough, in significant part because he chose to exercise his legal rights and protested against the actions of police. 

(ii) The conduct of the defendant in the civil proceedings, particularly because of the concessions made so late in the day, giving rise to the following finding by the Court, "Although the State made concessions about the lawfulness of the continued arrest, the belated and limited nature of those concessions meant that SAN1C was forced to undertake litigation with its concomitant stress, worry, time and cost, to establish that which the State eventually conceded." 

(iii) What, if anything, flowed from the decision in the proceedings in so far as training and education of NSWPF officers? Did the NSWPF bring the decision, which was very critical of the actions of the involved police officers, to the attention of those officers so that they might learn from their mistakes and not repeat them in the future? Was further training in police powers provided to those officers? Was the decision a catalyst to provide more comprehensive and specific training in police powers under the Law Enforcement (Powers and Responsibilities) Act 2002 (LEPRA) and was it included in any such training?

The Commission decided that the conduct of the involved NSWPF officers and the NSWPF itself was of such concern that it warranted investigation